Archive: The Fine and Right Education of the Young Doctor Benny

Phew, I've been working on these pictures all day! I can't do any more tonight, I'm falling asleep at the switch, but I still have pictures of Benny and Gabe playing together at the playground, the beach, and on the boat. So those will have to go up tomorrow. I also have pictures of Sadie at the violin recital, and Benny reading to Sadie from his space book. I also have movies from all these exciting episodes. So much history! So little sleep! Zzzzzz. :)

Space camp is over. The pictures are here.

Boat camp is over. Here are the pictures from the show.

Benny had his violin recital on June 12th, and here are the pictures!

Today Benny was very silly. We went to IHOP for supper and he got a silly face pancake and the waitress put about 3/4 of a cup of chocolate chips on it, which he happily ate, and then got even sillier. He must have shaken hands with everyone in the place. "HI I'M BENNY I'M FOUR HOW OLD ARE YOU!?" or "HI I'M BENNY WHAT'S YOUR NAME I AM GOING TO THE POTTY GOODBYE!" He was Senator Benny all the way! Silly, silly precious boy. I have tons of pictures on the way.

Some quotes:
MOMMY WE NEED TO GO TO THE TOOTH STORE AND GET SADIE SOME TEETH!
WHEN I PUT ON A SAFETY BELT I CAN FLOAT UP UP UP UP IN SPACE AND GO TO WHATEVER PLANET I WANT!
I NEED TO GO TELL DADDY THAT VOLCANOES HAVE LAVA! AND VOLCANOES ARE FOR PUSHING OUT LAVA! AND THE LAVA GOES SPOUTING UP TO CLOUDS OF ACID!!!!!!! *run run run*

EARLIER: Okay, the background for this is that when we were doing our plant unit study we made up words for "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and the first two lines were "Go tell Aunt Rhody I'm a chloroplast / Go show her all my stacks of thylakoids!" So today for the first time Benny played a state-sanctioned "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" on his violin and he was playing along and he suddenly, out of the blue, hollers out, "MOMMY! NUMBER TWELVE HAS STACKS OF THYLAKOIDS!!! NUMBER TWELVE HAS STACKS OF THYLAKOIDS!!!" Which made no sense to me until I realized that number 12 on the Suzuki CD is Allegro and it has the same musical phrase as Go Tell Aunt Rhody (with the traditional words, it's the "old gray goose is dead" part). So that was pretty funny.

JUST NOW: I'm putting Benny to bed and I'm reading him a Clifford book, the original Clifford the Big Red Dog book and I get done and Benny says, "MOMMY! Emily Elizabeth took Clifford to a DOG SHOW! And he DIDN'T WON but the BLACK DOG got first place and he WON!" And something prompted me to say, "Do you want a dog, Benny?" And Benny said, "OHHH!! We forgot to go to heaven! Tomorrow we have to go to heaven and get my dog! And see my grandma!" So I thought, okay, he's a grand old four years old now, and I can begin to explain to him that Heaven isn't like Arkansas, as in accessible by car, so I said a brief and cheerful and kind few sentences about how when people DIE they go to heaven and that Hobbes and Grandma died and that's why they are in heaven and we can't see them anymore. And I was very tentative about what I was saying, because I know he has an overactive imagination, and of course no one likes to explain death to a child, etc. so I said at the end that we can't have Hobbes as our dog anymore, and if he wanted to have a dog, we'd have to find a different dog. So he pipes up, cheerfully, "Let's get a black one this time!" with such overwhelming unsinkable enthusiasm in his desire to this time back a winner that I say, relieved, "Should we get a black grandma too?" And he says, "Yes! Like our cat!"

Today for Benny's violin practice, I put in The Lion King and forwarded it to a place where Timon and Puumba were looking at us, then Puumba called out encouragement every time Benny was doing good things. Mommy called out encouragement when Benny was doing wrong things. Somehow he liked Puumba better, even though Mommy was VERY nice. :) And I learned I can impersonate a warthog. Whee.

Benny's has a little friend Aidan from violin school. Aidan's grandmother has a web site for him and also for his little brother. You can see it here: http://www.thegrannynanny.com/ Very cool!

My husband, who shall henceforth be known as "Captain Dan," is watching a show on TV. As I briefly passed through the room, I heard "reinforced steel hull" and I knew it would not be a show that mesmerized me. What can I say? Speaking of boats, we went out on the boat today and we saw dolphins like CRAZY!!! Dan and I saw dolphins jumping CLEAR OUT OF THE WATER like they do at Sea World for fish treats. They were playing, blowing stuff out of their blowholes and flapping their tails. We quick got Benny out of the cabin and he saw LOTS of dolphins... right close to the boat too. Very cool. We gave Benny some chewable Drammamine today because a couple times he's said he felt sick on the boat... last time we went out he said his tummy felt like it was going to puke so I think he occasionally get seasick. The Drammamine made him sleep for a while but by the time we got out to the Cape Henry light, he was awake and not sick at all. And loving the dolphins.

His best thing today was "boat camp." Today was pirate day and they all wore eye patches and capered about going "Arrrrgh." They dug for buried treasure in the sandbox -- I think that was Benny's favorite part. Then he had a violin lesson in which he performed at about 40% of his present capacity -- not a great lesson. However, we got permission to go on to the next few songs in the Suzuki book. I have to get him to quit playing the harmony part he's made up on Twinkle and I have to get him off third position!!! I couldn't bring myself to tell Mrs. Ford that I had showed him third position on the E string -- he wants to play octaves and how can be play three octaves of C if he can't use third position??! Well, that was a bad thing I did. I have to undo it. :) All I did was say "Put your first finger on high A" and he figured out the rest. Also how to play in third position on the other strings -- OOPS! He has such enthusiasm for practicing -- today he woke right up and wanted to practice violin before boat camp. So he did while I was making his breakfast etc. What can I do? He can play like EVERY SONG IN BOOK ONE on the keyboard. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO.

Benjamin is playing Zoombinis and he's gotten ALL SIXTEEN ZOOMBINIS through the cliffs, the rock slide, the pizza troll, the tree thing, and now he's at the hotel thingy WITH ALL THE ORIGINAL ZOOMBINIS!!?!??! What is going on!? Last time he played this I had to totally help him. Now he's all... whatever. I can do it.

Benny, as he is running pell mell to the bathroom: "HEY! COOL! WE FOUND IT! THE POTTY! HERE IT IS! NOW WE CAN GO POTTY! BUT ME FIRST, QUICK, COME ON UP!!"

Today all the "kids" all watched Benny practice the violin from the sofa. The kids had been playing a game called "getting squares" with Sadie's quilt. I don't know how to play it and I wasn't *allowed* to play it because it's "just for kids." There are a few regular "kids," those being Big Brother Nemo, Sadie (a boy, not a girl), and Gabe (pretend Gabe). Then there are others that cycle through. All sat on the sofa and cheered for Benny (he did all the voices) and then requested more songs, more songs! Hehehe. They said things like, "HOORAY FOR LIGHTLY ROW AND SONG OF THE WIND! HOORAY!" Did I totally choke with love? Yes.

Today Benny had LOTS of fun at boat camp. He told me "Ms. Joanne and Henry and Virginia got in their teacher cars and ran away! And Mrs. Ford came and then space camp was boat camp!!!" Hehehe. He thinks back longingly to Ms. Joanne and Henry I think... but he adores Mrs. Ford and he's having a fabulous time. It's good that he misses space camp -- it means he had a good time. :) Today after boat camp we went to Gabe's house and he played with Gabe. They play SO ROUGH together -- they need a padded room, seriously! They love to wrestle and it makes me insane because one of them always ends up hurt and crying, and today it was Benny with a bang on the head. Bad! We keep trying to talk to them about being careful with each other -- they just love each other so much, and they always hug and say, "I love you, Benny/Gabe! You're my best friend!" But it's so tempting to be rough, and it seems to just come out of them.

Benny just came rushing in the room and said, "HEY LOOK OVER HERE! BENNY HAS A KEYBOARD! LET'S PLAY IT AND MAKE SURE SOUNDS COME OUT!!!" Hehehe.

Another thing, quick, because Sadie is awake!

Couple weeks ago Benny was practicing the violin and I was asking him to go slooooowly and he said, "But MOMMY, I am playing like Jonah, and God told Jonah to go FAST!" Ever since, then he's been referencing playing "like Jonah" as if, duh, that's what God told Jonah to do, but... WHERE DID HE GET THIS?

Here's another thing. We are playing harmony on the violin, right? With me playing the harmony and him playing the melody. Well, yesterday HE PLAYED THE HARMONY!? to Twinkle theme and I played the melody. It was a little choppy but he played it and it sounded actually really good! I really enjoy playing the violin with him and it's not just because he's my child and he's cute - he is really musical and his ear is so sensitive - he picks up on a lot of things that I do and it's very easy for us to stay together and in pitch. I just really love him - he's so amazing. :)

I have like 30 things that I have forgotten to blog and of course right now I can only remember one. There are so many things that Benny says or does that slip by during the day because I forget to blog later -- I really just need to sit down at the end of every single day, without fail, and blog. But anyway. Here is the thing I remember:

Me: Benny, put your pants on.
Benny: (Total spaced out look and continues to wander around without pants)
Me: Benny, put your PANTS ON!!!!
Benny: (Nothing)
Me: BENNY PUT YOUR PANTS ON! And I don't like having to tell you everything fifty times today!!! Do you have beans in your ears?!?!?
Benny: (in a calm, patronizing tone) It's fifTEEN times, Mommy. FifTEEN times.


:) :) :)

First day of nautical camp (Anchors Away, again at the Academy of Music) went well! Benny made a ship in a bottle and also a buoy that rings. Whee!!! He is really engaged with these little camps and experiences. He loves to reenact or roleplay about camp and reading class. He is the teacher and all the students. The most entertaining thing I've seen all week is Benny playing Duck, Duck, Goose and acting out the parts of about 10 children at once. His forte is settling disputes. Very enjoyable.

Violin update: Song of the Wind is progressing well. He has a lesson on Wednesday with Mrs. Ford and that'll be the last for the summer. I think she'll let him go on to Go Tell Aunt Rhody. RIP YOUR WIG OFF!

I'm listening to Benny play the keyboard. By which I mean I'm sitting here and he's playing the keyboard next to me IN HEADPHONES but they are cranked up so crazy-loud that I can pretty much hear him anyway.

He's playing harmonies. He's playing a song and he's playing thirds. Like, he's playing thirds, but not just a scale, a little melody with the harmony in thirds. He has learned about melody and harmony because when I play violin with him I play a harmony part and he's interested in that. We also try to sing in harmony but he doesn't hold his melody part strongly enough to do it yet. But it does work on the violin. ANYWAY, my point is I'm sitting here listening to him playing TWO PART HARMONY ON THE KEYBOARD.